The Points Where Unrelated Things Coincide

“The discovery of points where unrelated things coincide is one of the great arts of seers and magicians.”

Everything coincides with everything else at some point.  We can’t quite comprehend this, so we break everything down in binaries and oppositions and fail to see the bigger picture.  Which is fine in that it keeps us from having our minds blown by the vastness of it all.  But I believe we have to keep striving for greater and greater understanding, easing our scared little egos out of their ruts and into something bigger.  Otherwise, how does the world ever get from flat to round?  If it weren’t for the seer who visualized another option, we’d still be in danger of sailing off the edge of the world.

And that’s where we are right now in a lot of our understanding of social paradigms--race, gender, the environment, etc.  We are afraid that if we keep moving in these new, uncharted directions, we’re going to fall off the edge.  

When I was younger I thought I was one of the seers or magicians who would discover the points where seemingly unrelated things coincide.  Magic and science, reality and imagination, male and female, dark and light...Maybe I was one of those seers or magicians when I was younger, but now that I’m older I have a new responsibility.  To encourage the seers and magicians of the next generations.  Not that people my age or older should give up.  We are far from off the hot seat, but the most important thing we can do for our kids and the world of the future is encourage young people to THINK AS BIG AS THEY CAN.  To reach beyond the boundaries and limitations that were set for us, and that we expanded like champions.  

The arena where I’ve tried to do my expanding is YA literature.  When I was young, there were very few kick ass girls--I mean girls who literally kick ass.  There were plenty of figurative ass-kickers, like Scout and Anne and Pippi and Meg...But not the bruisers who populate popular YA fiction now.  Current bestsellers are full of female warriors and girls who fight back.  This is progress.  Not that it doesn’t create its own set of problems--like, why are we solving problems with violence, regardless of gender? But it’s better to be working through this new set of issues than staying stuck in the idea that girls can’t stand up for themselves.

So I’m proud of how writers my age and younger have expanded the playing field.  But it’s not big enough.  We have a lot further to go.  This is where we have to encourage the up and coming thinkers and dreamers to go as big as they can, beyond anything that is dreamt of in our old, worn out philosophies. For example, the obsolete notion that there are only two genders.  

We are going to talk about this, and many other things.  We are going to write stories that help huge new ideas become the norm.  I’m going to write those stories, and more importantly, I’m going to encourage kids to write whatever stories they need to write.  To help them feel like whatever they can feel or dream is possible.  Because it’s true. All points coincide somewhere.  Male becomes female, black becomes white, right becomes wrong, fantasy becomes reality...And what more amazing and worthwhile adventure than seeking that place of infinite possibility and magic?